Cretins!

I know they are only toy cars but when I build new slot cars for a new series I do try my best to replicate the livery as close as possible - as many on TNF will confirm, with eyes raised to the sky, no doubt.

Building two Aston Martins for my 1959 F.1 series, I decided that given the fact that Aston Martin themselves never really had a set colour for their cars I opted to match the paint colour to my diecast model of the 1959 Le Mans winner.

I am fortunate in that an in-law runs a car body shop and allows me to go through paint slips to match colours. The nearest match I could get to my Le Mans Aston was actually a Daewoo colour. So off I trotted with the reference, to my local Halfords to get it mixed.

The paint seemed to be coming out rather dark compared to the diecast model so I took paint, model, slot car shell and paint slip back to Halfords. The 'paint expert' took one look at it and said "It's the right colour - you just haven't got enough paint on it and it needs lacquering. Warm the can and make sure the bodyshell is not cold as you spray it." Well, I did all that, exactly as he suggested and needless to say the colour got darker and darker.

I gave up on that and went back to the body shop to choose another match. This time I found an Opel/Vauxhall colour. Back to Halfords and home. As the guy was mixing the paint he muttered words along the lines of "This doesn't look exactly like your model." He wasn't wrong.

Personally I would use Ford green jade for this.I have never actually left Halfords with anything mixed by them- they told me that Aston Martin middlesex green doesn't exist;I ended up getting it from a PPG place in the end. Then they said Ferrari fly yellow has 2 different variations,so what are they? I asked. Dunno,there's just 2. Walk away empty handed again!

Barry, in any case, both look too dark to me, especially of course the DBR4.
We are lucky here in my neck of the woods to have a good shop mixing paint with an electronic scanner, but it costs me 80 bucks for each color and I end up with 6 big cans of spray paint every time because it is the minimum they will mix!
However their matching has been so far, perfect, every time...
The French MMK Aston DBR1 1/32 scale slot car had the closest "correct" color I have seen so far on a model, but again, the color "may vary" as they say in all modern ads...

Ha ha Barry, I've gone to a different Halfords before now for the same reason!

As there are no good independant paint shops near me to get custom colours done I've recently had a lot of good service from online supplier 'Paints4U.com' and they can also match RAL colours without any fuss. The paint in the aerosol seems to be much better quality than Halfords custom colours, and would bet the guy mixing it isn't also trying to sell a set of wide chrome wheels or sound system at the same time.

I went into my Halfords for the Toyota Light Green 521 that you recommended I should try but the very nice chap said he needed to know which model of Toyota it was for, do you get asked this at your Halfords? I don't expect Halfords to be as knowledgeable on paint as a dedicated paint specialist or a sprayshop so I guess the more information I can take into them makes life easier for me and them.

Forty or so years ago I decided to respray my car, it was a light green and I decided I wanted dark green. I went to a motor factors and they suggested BMC British Racing Green. I didn't quite get enough so I went back for some more. It was a completely different shade. When I took it back I was told; "Did you know there are 26 different BMC British Racing Greens?"

I think Halfords staff are probably trying to do the right thing in making sure the paint they mix is right for your car. Like when they ask 'is it outside' if you are stood at the paint rack looking at all shades of metallic greens. So the best thing to do is from the outset tell them it isn't for a real car if they ask 'what model'. I think something else then kicks in and they become more interested if you say you are re-painting the fridge or its for a model car. But as Barry has described, they can still get it monumentally wrong.

As for 26 shades of BRG, that would just be the BMC colours, I think even BMW did a BRG, although all are the darker shades, not like the original Napier Green. I have knocking about somewhere a supplement that came with Classic and Sportscar (maybe?) many years ago where they attempted discuss what BRG was, and to identify the main BRG options with paint codes. But I remember from painting/repairing my racing car years ago there were 29 shades of 'Alfa Rosso 501'. After a few years and getting many very subtle variations it became easier just to mix them all together to create my own standard shade.

A few years ago Len Butler's 1927 Bentley 3litre Le Mans "Replica" rumbled past our trade stand at Donington and we were amazed by the colour. The "correct" works Bentley colour had been the subject of much debate at that time following the release of the Starter range of built Le Mans winners in which the Bentleys were a light Apple Green. Over a couple of pints that evening Len told us that he had done a lot of research on the matter and was convinced that Parson's Napier Green was the colour used but the shade that you get if you try to buy it now isn't what it was in the '20's, so his colour is best described a "based on" Parson's Napier Green.

Starter reckoned that their colour for the Bentleys was based on what Brian Harvey of GPM had found out from the man who actually painted the cars.

A liitle later IXO released the first of the Bentleys in their Le Mans winners range, it was in the traditional dark BRG. I emailed them to say the colour was wrong and the reply I got was that they knew it was wrong but Bentley Motors had insisted!

In the 04/07 issue of Octane an article about the recent restoration of Bentley #2 team car from LM 1930 says it was bright Parsons Napier Green before they started work. In fact like its Le Mans stablemates. But under all the old paint they found enough original paint to match a new colour to it, Dark Olive Green!

I thought I would change tack from Halfords and as mentioned above I took a chance with ordering Maserati Rifle Grey and Toyota Light Green from paints4u. Their website accepted the codes that Barry gave me and I should be able to try these colours out at the weekend, fingers crossed they are the expected shades.

In the 04/07 issue of Octane an article about the recent restoration of Bentley #2 team car from LM 1930 says it was bright Parsons Napier Green before they started work. In fact like its Le Mans stablemates. But under all the old paint they found enough original paint to match a new colour to it, Dark Olive Green!

Steve

But how much of the original car is actually original? Len reckoned that the darker colours came about because the cars were roughly repainted so many times that the colour got darker and darker. His colour was actually quite a pleasing shade, darker than the bright Starter green but quite a bit lighter than you would expect a Bentley to be.

I received my Maserati Rifle Grey and Toyota Light Green from paints4u. They were a little slow in processing the order and took three days to get it into the post but the delivery firm was quick from there on and I'll be happy to use their paints again in the future.

Today was my first chance to try the spray cans. I sprayed a couple of test pieces of scrap plastic and I like the way the paint mists on in a very fine spray, I was happy with the light green for my BRP run BRM P25 but the Maserati Rifle Grey doesn't convince me so I'll have to think again for what colour to use for my P48.

There were tricky spraying conditions in the garden this morning with a chilly swirling wind but the paint went on fairly well and I'll give it a gentle polish to get rid of the overspray in a day or so.

Latest instalment; I sent the above picture to the Customer Services department of Halfords. This is part of their reply:

"I would recommend that you take a sample of the paint that you have been provided back to the store and speak to the parts team.They will have in store a paint colour chart which is part of the paint mix service.You then can check the colour you have been given against the same colour in the paint colour chart."

Today I went into Halfords armed with the paint slips and the e-mail. The young lady told me that they have not had any such colour chart for EIGHT years.

However, she took down all the references from the back of the paint slip and promised to phone me with some information by 3 p.m. on Wednesday. I await her call....

Latest instalment; I sent the above picture to the Customer Services department of Halfords. This is part of their reply:

"I would recommend that you take a sample of the paint that you have been provided back to the store and speak to the parts team.They will have in store a paint colour chart which is part of the paint mix service.You then can check the colour you have been given against the same colour in the paint colour chart."

Today I went into Halfords armed with the paint slips and the e-mail. The young lady told me that they have not had any such colour chart for EIGHT years.

However, she took down all the references from the back of the paint slip and promised to phone me with some information by 3 p.m. on Wednesday. I await her call....

To avoid faffing! How about getting an airbrush, finding a reference for each specific shade of Aston Verte that you so desire to replicate, and mixing it! "Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" etc, etc. You will never have to 'experience' Halfords again and you will potentially have access to every shade of Terre Verte known to man or Aston!

To avoid faffing! How about getting an airbrush, finding a reference for each specific shade of Aston Verte that you so desire to replicate, and mixing it! "Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime" etc, etc. You will never have to 'experience' Halfords again and you will potentially have access to every shade of Terre Verte known to man or Aston!

Have you seen how many unexpected colours go into an average green, never mind the different metallic components! The one thing thats interesting about getting paint at my Halfords is that I can see the paint being mixed.

But yes, they did away with the colour swatch books years ago. I asked if they could let me have them but was told they HAD to be thrown away, bastards. But I had many happy hours looking to get a perfect match.

There is "scale gloss" - the degree of glossiness that a 1/43 model viewed about 1ft away or a 1/32 at arm's length will match the real thing across the street. Most models these days are too shiny. The original Dinkies and Corgis were better in their semi-gloss finish. go to a Toyfair and look at some of the repaints to see what I'm getting at.

Does the same apply to the colour of a model - both hue (colour) and shade (lightness/darkness)? The real thing would be viewed in daylight and the model often in artificial light which is a "warmer light". So should the model be finished in a "colder" colour to compensate? Does the colour further away look a bit lighter or darker Or less intense? I don't know the answer, but often models from respected makers just look "wrong".

We know we can't rely on photographs or memory. Colour charts may change with time. The colours corresponding to older classification systems have been lost. pain formulation has changed. Can we even trust a chip of original paint as it's colour may change due to chemical changes even when exposed to light?

I suppose that what is really more important is relative colour. If Graham Hill's BRM was metallic and darker than Jim Clark's Lotus and Jack Brabham's Cooper was darker than both and non-metallic then that's what the three models next to each other should show. Similarly the different reds of Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati etc at different times.

I eventually gave up on the Daewoo colour, despite the lady from Halfords eventually getting back to me with the info that she had obtained a page from the 'very expensive' colour chart book and had made me a can of the Daewoo colour I sought with the reference from that page. I took along my paint slip and it did indeed match the one in her book. She then showed my a waxed paper container that she had sprayed with the new can of paint.

I couldn't help but feel that it still looked a bit dark. Still, the can was free so I brought it home, followed all the instruction regarding paint temperature, can shaking, spraying temperature etc etc etc... and finished up with exactly the same dark green that I had in the first place.

I gave up on Daewoo. Patiently stripped all the paint off the two shells, right back to the resin and decided to start again. I went back to the source of my paint colours and spent a long time going through the paint slips. Eventually I settled on an Audi colour - Aquarius - and toddled off back to Halfords.

It was with great excitement that I shook my new can of paint and prepared to spray. The moment the paint hit the first shell I thought, mmm, this looks a bit on the dark side, and, sure enough, it is! The lacquer seems to make it even darker but I've had enough. I'm not going to do anything else about them. They are going to stay as they are - wrong colour, too dark, but my patience is spent.

I would add a photograph but neither car colour nor paint slip seem to reproduce accurately enough so comparisons would be worthless. Just take my word for it, they got it wrong again!

To my eye the DBR4 colour and the Spark DBR9 colour are essentially the same thing (scaled out and with better application), and similar to the real DBR1 colour. And the DBR9 colour is the same AM 'Racing Green' I suggested you can get mixed at Halfords back in post #2.

Nice idea, Steve, but remember, I have taken three paint slips to my local Halfords, with all the relevant paint codes on the back and none of the three cans has turned out anything like the colour on the slip. And not just slightly wrong - MILES OUT.

Barry, was the "aargh!":
a) at the colours of those Spark models?
b) at the idea of using a road car colour that only approximates to your DBR1?
c) at the idea of using a Vauxhall colour?
d) at the idea of Vauxhall using an Aston Martin colour?
e) anger with yourself at having failed to spot that some Vauxhall Astras are that shade?
or
f) all of the above?

Seriously, in my travels over the hols my eye was caught by an Astra which immediately made me think of Aston metallic green, so I looked it up and it's close in shade (to my eye anyway).

Or you could still mix 50/50 Humbrol 30 and 56 and apply by brush................

My 'Aaaargh' was for (a) - in relation to the older car. That is dreadful. I still think, having seen numerous Astons from the late 50s/early 60s at Silverstone and Goodwood, that the colour of the model back in post #1 is not bad.

As for the modern Aston green - it's very nice but I don't think it's that similar to the colour from 50 years ago. Too dark.

I am seriously wondering if there is a problem with Halfords colour mixing system. Especially in the light of what Steve just posted, in addition to my own experiences.

[quote name='Barry Boor' date='Jan 4 2011, 22:53' post='4777125']
My 'Aaaargh' was for (a) - in relation to the older car. That is dreadful. I still think, having seen numerous Astons from the late 50s/early 60s at Silverstone and Goodwood, that the colour of the model back in post #1 is not bad.

As for the modern Aston green - it's very nice but I don't think it's that similar to the colour from 50 years ago. Too dark.

I am seriously wondering if there is a problem with Halfords colour mixing system. Especially in the light of what Steve just posted, in addition to my own experiences.

I have never had any joy from Halfords- the DBR9 is a proper Aston colour,Middlesex green which Halfords say doesn't exist. I got mine from a place called Spraystor opposite Brands Hatch front entrance. If you have the car make they can match and always have done for me. I saw their charts of Aston metallic greens,they must introduce another 3 new ones every year!

According to info supplied by Neil Murray at Aston Martin Heritage in 2002, the Almond Green used on the DBR1 was ICI Belco 202-1087. Don't have a reference for the DBR4 as the enquiry was about Le Mans cars.

I tried inputting this into the Paints 4U website but all that comes up is Oyster Silver, which Steve mentioned in his post. It appears that there must be another reference for DBR9 Racing Green.

A few weeks have passed with no progress whatsoever on this matter.

I went to the industrial estate in Caernarfon from where, many years ago, I obtained the page of light green paint samples that I took down to mid Wales to compare with a piece of bodywork from Stirling's crashed Lotus from Goodwood in 1962 - and which led me to the Toyota colour mentioned earlier in this thread.

Sadly, I was unable to find the paint place I went to before. There is now a huge warehouse-type building where I think the previous place stood.

Oh well....

I think it is worth mentioning that I have been in touch with Tim Dyke who builds/built wonderful models of old racing and sports cars. This seemed a brilliant idea as I knew he had made Le Mans Astons from the 1950s. Indeed, he makes models for people who actually own the real cars in some instances. I thought that here was a sure fire way of getting the correct reference.

Imagine my surprise when he sent me a picture of two 1959 Le Mans cars:

Even allowing for slight colour variation due to cameras/printers/screen set-ups etc etc etc - these two don't look anything like the colour that I was expecting.

So, I'm no nearer a solution than I was back in October when all this begun.

PS - Vauxhall did two metallic greens and now call them both 'classis green', which has caused problems for owners of cars in the lighter shade trying to get the right one - the lighter one was definitely 'jade perlescent' and that's the one that makes me think "Aston!" whenever I see an Astra in that colour.

I tried inputting this into the Paints 4U website but all that comes up is Oyster Silver, which Steve mentioned in his post. It appears that there must be another reference for DBR9 Racing Green.

A few weeks have passed with no progress whatsoever on this matter.

I went to the industrial estate in Caernarfon from where, many years ago, I obtained the page of light green paint samples that I took down to mid Wales to compare with a piece of bodywork from Stirling's crashed Lotus from Goodwood in 1962 - and which led me to the Toyota colour mentioned earlier in this thread.

Sadly, I was unable to find the paint place I went to before. There is now a huge warehouse-type building where I think the previous place stood.

Oh well....

I think it is worth mentioning that I have been in touch with Tim Dyke who builds/built wonderful models of old racing and sports cars. This seemed a brilliant idea as I knew he had made Le Mans Astons from the 1950s. Indeed, he makes models for people who actually own the real cars in some instances. I thought that here was a sure fire way of getting the correct reference.

Imagine my surprise when he sent me a picture of two 1959 Le Mans cars:

Even allowing for slight colour variation due to cameras/printers/screen set-ups etc etc etc - these two don't look anything like the colour that I was expecting.

So, I'm no nearer a solution than I was back in October when all this begun.

This illustrates the point I was trying to make earlier about "scale colour". To my untrained eye it looks as if the metal flakes in the paint are the same true size as the original and when scaled up this makes the models look, well, blotchy. It may be just a trick of the light in the photo and not so apparent to the naked eye.

I have owned a copy of Chris Nixon's 'Sports Car Heaven' for some years and apart from my initial reading of the book, until this morning I had never thought to open it and have a look. It has numerous colour photos of Aston Martins from the late 1950s.

I got quite a shock because almost without exception the pictures make the cars look MUCH darker than any other Aston pictures I have seen before and certainly a totally different sort of colour to all the real cars that appear at events such as the Revival.

So, why is this? I don't know but I am beginning to think that maybe the colour I have on my F.1 cars is more acceptable than I thought it was and maybe none of this thread was actually of any value at all.

As I have said before Barry, if not in this thread but maybe elsewhere, the colour reproduction of contemporary photographs is nothing to go on. You need to take a large average selection and interpret the colours from there.

There are a few notable and often reproduced photographs with very poor colour fidelity from Le Mans that gave rise to the 'Jade Green' idea in the first place. If you see them Jade Green is the perfect colour! You can then look at film footage from the same year at Le Mans and the cars are very dark green, too dark to make sense against the 'Jade Green' stills from the same race. Equally you have snapshots of recent restorations that a/they got it wrong, or b/the white balance of the photograph is off, or c/ the rare photo that is both of a correctly restored car and has the correct white balance. And lets not forget, however much money somebody has to restore a car, it doesn't mean they won't just say 'thats the shade I like(meaning thats what they imagined it would be)'!

Which is why I keep coming back to the recent DBR9 Racing Green as the best closest match to 1959 racing green (and why wouldn't it be?). Its about halfway between Jade and dark green, and fits the profile of many other images as well.